Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
AUGUST 29, 2022 – (Cont.) Day Six. Yesterday’s appointment was another visit to the “MERCY CLINIC,” rather abandoned on the weekend, except for skeletal staff to administer to transplant patients like me—a two-day patient, a three-day, a six-day patient, I was informed. The wait was long enough for me to log a 10-minute walk up …
AUGUST 27, 2022 – (Cont.) Today at noon, I reach “Day 4” after transplant—better than halfway to the halfway mark toward “Day 14”— the day by which the engraftment of stem cells reaches a stage where transplant patients begin to feel better. That leaves 10 days in between. Ten. These are the really tough miles …
AUGUST 26, 2022 – (Cont.) Nurse John greeted me cheerfully at my 7:30 appointment yesterday. His mask concealed his face below his eyes, but the eyes and voice revealed unmistakable kindness and intelligence. His calm, friendly demeanor put me at immediate ease. Though definitely a “people person,” he also loved talking science—specifically, the science of …
AUGUST 25, 2022 – (Cont.) Roll back yesterday’s “video” of my LAX – LGA flight after take-off, climbing out of L.A. Having repeated my silent entreaty to the aviation gods for a “safe and uneventful take-off, a safe and uneventful flight, and a safe and uneventful landing” (four times, for extra efficacy–after all, airline safety …
AUGUST 24, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Being under the gun to make it on time to my daily appointment at the “Center,” I haven’t proofed this post. (Cont.) Yesterday I learned another lesson in hope for humanity. Before the transplant procedure yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t known the somewhat ritualistic significance that the medical team assigns …
AUGUST 23, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Wife is a sweetie. And I apologize for blowing way past my self-imposed daily word quota (of yore). (Cont.) Late Sunday evening my wife and I were still in the throes of preparing our abode for “cancer con”—short for “convalescence from the effects of cancer chemo treatment.” She had …
AUGUST 22, 2022 – (Cont.) Yesterday afternoon I joked to some friends that “I like going to the U of MN Cancer Center so much, I even go there on Saturday and Sunday.” Joking aside, this past weekend’s sessions, each for an infusion line flush, were brief and uneventful, except for the discovery that my …
AUGUST 20, 2022 – Blogger’s note: The gracious reader will accept my apologies for the poor self-editing of yesterday’s post. The explanation (versus excuse) is that our hyper-imaginative granddaughter was under our day-long charge. Among her plays, musical performances, story-telling, painting sessions, and backyard expeditions, all of which required audience/spectator participation, I assembled very few …
AUGUST 19, 2022 – (Cont.) Yesterday, calm prevailed in my own little world, however much “wheels-off” was the theme in the larger picture. Occupying the tranquility, but not disturbing it, were numerous exchanges with people who influence my outlook on life and humanity. Caught up in my own hopes, fears, and focus, I’m pulled away to broader …
AUGUST 17, 2022 – (Cont.) I once had a friend, a close friend, a work colleague, whom I met my first day on the job as the lucky recruit to manage the “work-out” (deals gone bad) division of bank’s corporate trust department. The guy who hired me, it turned out, would later be escorted ignobly …
AUGUST 15, 2022 – (Cont.) Last night I slept like a rock, not because I was exhausted by the day’s interaction with the medical profession, but because of my complete confidence in the care that has been afforded me. Yesterday’s squad—Bridgette, Amber, Kaitlin, May, Annie, Randall, Bella, Laura, Angela, Mariah, plus others whose names went …
AUGUST 14, 2022 – (Cont.) This morning when I arrived at the clinic for my third of five injections in the run-up to the stem-cell “harvest,” street parking was wide open. I luxuriated first by pulling into the slot closest to the entrance to the five-story U of MN Masonic Cancer Care Center. I indulged …
AUGUST 13, 2022 – (Cont.) Yesterday, after rain relented and the earth dried out, I embarked on my daily power-walk to “Little Italy” (next to “Little Switzerland”). For several blocks I thought I felt bone pain that I’d been told to expect from the five “sub-cu” injections I receive over the course of five days, …
AUGUST 11, 2022 – Eight months into my “diagnosis,” I summoned the curiosity (actually, the courage) to Google, “multiple myeloma.” The online Oxford definition squares with what my oncologist told me at the outset: “A malignant tumor of the bone marrow.” Elsewhere on the internet, I read that the disease is “rare,” with only 200,000 …
AUGUST 10, 2022 – Like Tony the Tiger in the old Frosted Flakes TV commercials, I feel G-g-g-g-r-r-r-e-e-a-t! Yet the feeling gnaws at me: If I feel so great, why must I soon feel so “crappy”? I refer to my upcoming cancer treatment, of which you’re about to read a lot—assuming you’ll follow my blog. …
AUGUST 7, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Because “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,” I’ve had to defer until tomorrow, the second part of “Men’s Shoes.” Don’t worry, however. The piece is already in the (shoe) bag. Also, for today’s post, I’ve given myself special dispensation and lifted my self-imposed limit on the …
JULY 24, 2022 – I’ve noticed that many people can’t bear silence for very long. Whether they’re driving, walking through the park, or sweeping out the garage, they’ve got to have sound or music filling their inner ears. It’s as if music, a phone conversation, a favorite podcast, or some other aural stimulus is the …
JULY 18, 2022 – Over the weekend, while sitting on our dock, I watched cumulus clouds billowing upward over the lake. Earlier, when our six-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter was doing likewise and seeing dragons and unicorns, she’d asked, “How are clouds made?” I explained that when the earth warms by day, the moist, heated air near the …
JUNE 23, 2022 – I’m interrupting my “True Story” series—an explanation of life on earth, as told to an alien from a galaxy far, far away—and exceeding all self-imposed word limits (for “True Story,” I’ve increased my previous limit of 500 to 550) to write about the loss of a dear friend, the inimitable John …
MAY 20, 2022 – In early December I flew from Heathrow to JFK. In New York I presented my passport for the last time on my Grand Odyssey. It contained so many stamps I’d had to have extra pages added by the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, and the cover was so worn, the gold lettering …
MAY 18, 2022 – After another day in Moscow, I traveled by train to Leningrad, then westward to Helsinki. From the Finnish capital, I steamed farther west to Stockholm. There I visited my cousin Anders before heading southwest to Malmö to see our cousins Merith and Mats-Åke. The November daylight in Sweden was short and …
MAY 15, 2022 – As the train approached Yaroslav Station in Moscow seven days after departing Khabarovsk, Sasha, my carriage attendant, and Yuri, chief of the train crew, found their way to my compartment. Yuri wanted to give me directions to the upscale restaurant to which he’d invited me for dinner the following evening. Sasha …
MAY 14, 2022 – When the train reached major cities like Perm, Omsk, Sverdlovsk, and Novosibirsk, I was amazed by the size of such places that prior to my trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway, I hadn’t even known existed. Each had a population of well over a million—larger than today’s combined population of the “Twin …
MAY 12, 2022 – (Cont. See 5/10/22 post) The public misbehavior of my two countrymen was unsettling. Throughout my formal education—and in life generally—I’d been no stranger to debate. But exactly how, I wondered, could two Americans aboard a Russian train become so locked in dispute as to lose all self-awareness—especially in the absence of alcohol? …
MAY 7, 2022 – If Russians readily conceded that they didn’t enjoy the same level of material prosperity as Americans, it was because the American military threat had forced the USSR to spend even more money on defense. This was a nearly universal sentiment—er, Communist Party line—among the Russians I met. The truth, of course, …